?How I have lost my mind?
?I wonder what the kids are doing?, I wondered, on a cold Sunday morning. It was freezing outside. I was wearing a bright red pullover that shielded my body from the biting east wind that blew in from the eastern side of my dark mansion. The postman who had dropped the latest Readers Digest condensed book had by mistake left the rear pantry door open and had let in the draught.
?Let us condense one of those condensed books and make it into a poster?, I said to myself as I turned the pages looking for any semblance of Hamlet that this 20 page booklet was supposed to signify. ?I wonder what Shakespeare would think if he came to know of this scam?, I thought to myself as I stirred some more hot chocolate into my hot chocolate. ?Is the milk as condensed as the book?, I ruminated as I turned to see Daniel walk in wearing the pink sweater I had bought for him on our last wedding anniversary. I smile at him thinking, ?This is a perfect Readers Digest moment which makes 10 billion people enjoy such trash?.
The first Reader?s Digest books that I chanced upon were from the 1960s and from an old old library. I was impressed by the quality of the work. The classiness and the purported truth that was being portrayed in the pages. The pages always contained a wealth of new information. Information about America that I could not get in any other way.
It also contained some real life articles that made for excellent reading. Most of the stuff like the 2 passages shown above were written in the style of the current afternoon Hindi/Thamizh serials, even in 1960. Infact the Readers Digest was so popular during those times and had a tremendous amount of influence on the English Speaking populace in Europe and Asia that the Russians started teir own version of the ’’Readers Digest’’ called the SPUTNIK. The Russian propaganda machine was just a millionth as successfull because no-one could read English translation of Russian. (Its funny, you should try it).
All now all that is gone. The Readers Digest is COMPLETELY unreadable now. I am not able to go past the first few passages in any article, be it politics, humour, real life stories or the condensed book section. Here are a few cribs about the current versions of the RD.
1. Stop being such a propaganda machine for the United States of America. I agree it is a magazine floated in the USA and that you have many versions to be sold in each of the countries... but the US propaganda machine does not work these days. The general view that the USA is a benign do-gooder for the world is slowly sinking into the mush.
You simply have to stop writing articles that suggest that the 1991 Iraq war was ONLY because Bush Senior wanted to save a few Kuwaitis.
2. The format you use to write the ’’real life artices’’... IS gettign very very stale. It follows the beaten track. ’’A day of the life of the victim, the event that changed everything, the love interest, the support, the death/the recovery, interview with Readers Digest and sick photograph, later better photograph’’.
3. Stop coming out with those ’’condensed books’’. Knowing your circulation and the responsibility that you have in upholding English literature, I feel you must not popularize this since the beauty of the original is completely lost if you reprint the book having in mind ONLY the utilitarian value.
Inspite of all this, the world population laps up a few hundred million copies of the book every month. Well then we cannot reduce the number of American housewives in the world can we? Maybe the better bet would be introduce them into the BPO activity. But then there would be no one to ask stupid questions. Now I am rambling on like RD does. Bye.